Conservatives have constantly used Reagan's military buildup back in the 80s, along with the Afghanistan debacle and the Star Wars program as a reason to why the Soviet Union collapsed. Is there really any truth to this? I've always been under the impression that the Soviet system was always fundamentally flawed and was inevitably going to collapse, even without American influence.

Mole or really stupid kid...:p

Answers are the standard Hate Raygun variety...:D

Madisonian

01-02-2011, 10:34 PM

LOL!!! DU is full of really old BullShit threads!!! (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x104307) :D

Mole or really stupid kid...:p

Answers are the standard Hate Raygun variety...:D

What is just over their heads is that in one thread they say the USSR was doomed by its own weight and policies and in the next they will advocate this country adopt many of those same policies that doomed the USSR.
To paraphrase Pogo...
We have met the enemy and he is them.

swirling_vortex

01-03-2011, 12:56 AM

Ironically, the DUmmie backs himself into a corner with that statement. If he believes that Reagan helped spur the collapse of the Soviet Union, then he has to accept that being a 100% pacifist in the world doesn't work when you have evil empires abroad and that you need to be able to confront issues when they arise (unlike Mr. Carter).

If, however, he believes the system collapsed on its own, then it essentially pokes holes in the progressive ideology. That means government planning and management of resources on any scale will succumb to the same flaws like deficit spending, inequality of resource distribution, and the poor standard of living among the people.

Therefore, he is faced with either accepting the conservative premise on foreign policy or rejecting his progressive views.

Rebel Yell

01-03-2011, 12:27 PM

Everyone knows that Rocky ended the Cold War by knocking out Drago and winning over the Russian crowd.

AmPat

01-03-2011, 12:35 PM

cowcommander (548 posts) Sun Jan-02-11 04:07 AM
Original message Did Reagan really "defeat" the Soviet Union?
Preposterous! Everybody knows that the Soviets were crapping kittens over the fearsome Jimmy Carter. They were terrified by the DIMoRATS and saw that their only hope was to surrender to them immediately. Their surrender was manufactured during the Carter years and only finalized and tendered under the weak Reagan administration. They couldn't stop the inevitable surrender but rued the day they had to surrender to a girly, weak Reagan instead of the manly, terrifying, military genius Carter.:rolleyes:

noonwitch

01-03-2011, 01:15 PM

The USSR was doomed to collapse, both economically and politically. You can't maintain a totalitarian regime if you can't pay your army, or if your army gets tired of killing/repressing people. Reagan's policies just speeded it up a bit by forcing them to spend a lot of money keeping their nuclear arsenal competitive with ours.

The Solidarity movement in Poland is what started the way to the inevitable collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Reagan/Thatcher/JPII all played roles in encouraging what transpired afterwards.